F.E.R.N. replied to Twisted Nurse's topic in Med-Surg
I can't speak to every BON and every state, but I agree that we are required to act in what we feel is the patient's best interest, and at some times, that certainly means questioning an order, or seeking a new order to cover a new status. At least ...
F.E.R.N. replied to Twisted Nurse's topic in Med-Surg
Where I work, it is stressed that a nurse cannot legally hold or otherwise adjust any medications, including insulin, unless given specific parameters and instructions in the orders. If staff question giving a med as ordered, they are instructed to ...
Good suggestions. Even with the money there, sometimes we still have to answer the question from admin, "how often would you use that?" For many things, the answer is, " I don't know; we've never had one." If I had a Ferrari, I bet I'd find more p...
My staff education department has an unexpected windfall in our budget, giving us the opportunity to purchase additional educational equipment/supplies this year. I'd like your suggestions for items you've either used and loved, or things you always...
F.E.R.N. replied to silver2009's topic in Emergency
I'm also curious about policies regarding monitoring of patients given narcs. We have an area that has no monitors, but where PAs like to give morphine and such (kind of a high-grade fast track route). I'm not comfortable giving mind- or VS-alterin...
Oh how I wish that those bedside monitor readings could only be viewed by someone wearing special glasses! Maybe like the ones out of the cereal box that let you read messages written in the "invisible pencil" that came with them
This was not a CHIEF complaint, but it was a complaint...Patient is resting comfortably, watching TV in bed, DC pending...man stomps out of the room to the nurses station and loudly asks, "Is anyone paying any attention to my wife's diastolic pressur...
F.E.R.N. replied to NeoPediRN's topic in Emergency
Please don't whine. You can complain, ask for help, or tell me you're not ready for this next ambulance...but don't whine. When you get the problem patient, the next one that has to go in the hallway, the drunk, the trauma you don't feel ready for....
While I can't really speak for this individual ER, if it's any comfort, the tech is not usually the person who knows all that is going on with the patient. If you had ever been to that hospital before, they would probably have already pulled up rele...
I work in a regional level 3 TC, with many outlying rual areas and two major highways going through our town, brining in lots of out-of-towners...here's how things work in our area for unresponsive/confused patients: Our 1st responders generally do...
Actually, in the ER, we often force people into treatments they don't want. Saw this many times on the neuro floor, too. If you are suicidal, for example, you are not given the choice to refuse a lavage if the doctor declares (1) you are trying to hu...
I've wondered that, too. There seems to be agreement that if you are being seriously threatened with injury to life or limb, you can react with force to protect yourself, but I've never heard of it spelled out in any hospital policy, and who defines...
F.E.R.N. replied to Amnesiac70's topic in Emergency
At our facility, if the patient is on antibiotics, whether prior to arrival or administered by ED staff, we simply make a notation of what they've had and order the cultures as a FAN. The lab has never told us the FAN cultures are any less usable fo...